CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The surface of the quicksand bubbled. Nicole’s face pushed through. She spit out the oatmeal-like sludge and took a deep breath. “Shanti!” she gasped. “Shanti, I’ve got hold of a root! We’re saved.”

Two seconds later, Shanti’s head emerged. “Nicole! Nicole, I found a root! I can pull us out!”

“Shanti? Where are you?”

“Over here! Sorry, I can’t see yet. Can’t wipe my eyes.”

“Me either. Can you pull yourself out?” Nicole asked.

“Totally.”

“Go!”

With a grunt, they heaved their way up the vine and onto solid land. They were covered in muck, but they were alive. This narrow escape made them giddy. They hugged and held on tightly to each other.

“Ohmigosh, that is going to be, like, the best story ever for the judges!” Shanti shook the clingy mud from her hands.

Nicole did the same. “Just so you know, I wouldn’t have let you drown before.”

“I know,” Shanti said, and they hugged again.

They found a steaming hot spring, and once they had tested it to be sure it wasn’t more quicksand, they eased themselves in. The banks of the hot spring were made of thick, red clay. Shanti scooped up a handful and put it on her face. “This stuff is, like, genius for your complexion. Want some?”

Nicole smeared the mud on her face. “Too bad there’s nothing for my hair.”

“What do you mean?” Shanti could feel the clay hardening, closing her pores.

“I am a black woman without her products. All this new growth? I will never get a brush through this again,” Nicole said with a sigh.

“It looks so awesome! Like a kinky waterfall.”

“Did you just say kinky waterfall like it was a compliment?”

“You should keep it natural.”

“Yeah?” Nicole patted her hair. It was coarse but full. “Need some kind of grease, though.”

“Try using fresh coconut milk. It’s a crazy-awesome moisturizer.”

“Cool. Still trying to get used to that Valley accent, Bollywood. It’s, like, so Galleria!”

“Whatever.”

The two of them lay back and let the warmth of the water work on their tense muscles. They were relaxed from the water and giggly with their shared adventure. Talk came easily now.

“Can I ask you something, Nicole?’

“Sure. Wait — is this gonna be a sex talk? ’Cause I’m still a virgin.”

“Me, too. It’s not a sex conversation. So why are you doing Miss Teen Dream? No offense, but it doesn’t seem like you’re really into it.”

“I want the scholarship money for medical school.” Nicole usually stopped there. Everybody understood that answer. But she decided to be honest with Shanti. “But mostly, it’s to make my mom happy. She really wants me to be a star. I think she’s the one who wants to be a star.”

“So what if you stood up to her, told her how you feel?”

Nicole slowly bicycled her legs out in front of her. “You try standing up to my mom. She’s a force of nature.”

“Are you going to let her run your life forever?”

Nicole sank down, letting the water rise to her chin. She thought about one time, after a local pageant, her second, when she didn’t place. Afterward, she stood with her mother in the busy Doubletree Hotel hallway, girls posing and pirouetting all around, while her mother talked to the coach. “What can she do to improve her chances? What are the judges looking for?” her mother had asked. The coach had hemmed and hawed and looked uncomfortable. “Don’t be too ethnic,” she’d finally said. And Nicole felt her mother’s hand tighten on her shoulder for a second, saw the pull at her jaw. “Thank you,” her mother had said. They’d walked in silence to the car.

“So why did you sign up for Miss Teen Dream?” Nicole asked, changing the subject.

Shanti thought for a minute. She’d answered the question a million times for an audience. All those half truths and outright fabrications, giving people what they wanted without stopping to think about what she really wanted. “I think I was bored.”

Nicole burst out laughing. “Bored? What, was the mall closed?”

“Shut up!” Shanti laughed. “Okay, that’s not one hundred percent true, but sort of. I mean, I’d won everything else. It was the one thing I couldn’t seem to conquer. I just felt like … I don’t know.”

“You had something to prove?”

“Yes!”

“I know that.”

Shanti bobbed up and down in the water, enjoying her buoyancy. “The thing is, I don’t really want it anymore. Not really.”

“What do you want?”

“Everything!” Shanti laughed.

“Me, too.”

Shanti rested her head against the bank and let her body float out in front of her. “Okay, secret want? Like, pinkie-swear-you-can’t-tell secret?”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “Who am I going to tell?”

“I kind of want to be a DJ.”

Nicole laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“DJ? Really?”

“Everything in my life has always been about the goal, about being perfect and not letting the seams show. But, like, with DJing? It’s about finding that groove. It’s like you have to play around. It’s, like, process.”

“Like, that’s deep.”

“Shut up!” Shanti laughed. “If we were up onstage right now in front of the judges, you know what I would say when they asked me my life goals? I would say, ‘You know what? Let me get back to you. I’m still figuring it out.’ We should wash this stuff off now. I can barely move my lips.”

The girls splashed their faces with warm water, rubbing off all the clay. Nicole ran a finger over her cheeks.

“Wow. That really works. My skin is silky smooth³⁴.”

“Yeah. I might have to make this part of my skincare line. Shanticeuticals. I could do a whole cosmetics line for ethnic skin. The packaging would be killer! Sort of a henna tattoo thing?” Shanti said.

Nicole laughed. “Good. You’re back. For a second there, I was starting to worry.”

“I still like to win,” Shanti said, grinning. “I’m not saying I’m not, like, totally Type A. I just need a B side, too.”

“Nothing wrong with that. Just promise me that Shanticeuticals will not have a bleaching cream.”

Shanti held up three fingers in a scout’s-honor pose. “No bleaching cream.”

Nicole put up her fist. “Bump me, Bollywood.”

“Namaste, sassy black sidekick,” Shanti said, and gave Nicole’s fist a thump with hers. She pulled herself out of the water, squeezed the water from her hair, and loosely plaited it. “What do you want for dinner — grubs or bulrush?”

“A cheeseburger,” Nicole said. “And fries.”

“When we get back, I’m eating everything. Twice.”

“That sounds like the best plan ever.”

Arm in arm, Shanti and Nicole walked back toward the beach camp. Behind them, the wind swooped down from the painted mouths on the hill over the ruined land as if it could reach out fingers to tap them on their shoulder, turn them around. To warn them.

Jennifer stared at the radio. “Work with me,” she pleaded. With a sigh, she took off the cover again. How she wished she had a sonic screwdriver or a superhero’s radio-fixing powers. Jennifer tried to remember all she’d learned both at her mother’s plant and from comic books. She touched two wires and got a small shock.

“Ow!” she said, shaking her finger. The radio blurbled to life. “Oh my God. I did it,” she said. “I fixed the radio. Hey, you guys! I got a signal!”

The girls ran to Jen, crowding around the radio. Taylor pushed her way through to the front.

“Listen,” Jen said. Beneath the static, the girls could hear a whisper of sound.

“It’s too soft. See if you can get a stronger signal, Miss Michigan,” Taylor said.

Jennifer made a few gestures to Sosie up in the tree to adjust the makeshift antenna. Jen twisted the knobs, listening for some heartbeat of sound. The radio answered in static and loud hisses, like a radiator coming to life on the first cold day of fall. A blurp of an old country and western song thrilled everyone for a moment.

“I go out walkin’ after midnight… .“Nicole warbled along. “Ooh, I love Patsy Cline!”

“Shh,” Jen admonished. She put her ear closer to the radio. Faint voices broken by static came through.

“… final score: New York Giants, twenty-four. Detroit Lions, seventeen …”

“Lions suck,” Jennifer said, shaking her head.

A strong, clear signal rocked the radio. A male voice in accented English asked about coordinates and product and delivery status. Another man with a Midwestern voice answered, “We are on track for delivery,” and gave coordinates.

The sound faded and was replaced by other voices.

“… press conference about the crash of Corporation Flight A-617 carrying those missing Miss Teen Dream contestants, Bob …”

“Quiet!” Jen shouted.

The radio hiccupped into a jingle for Forever Young Jeans³⁵. Jen flicked off the radio and a terrible quiet descended on the beach.

“They gave up,” Taylor said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “They just … left us. We did everything they asked, and they left us.”

Nicole put a hand on Taylor’s arm. “It’s okay, Taylor.”

“No. It’s not okay. It’s not okay at all.” Tears beaded along Taylor’s thick lashes. “This … this was my last year!”

Taylor pushed through the gathered girls and ran toward the jungle as fast as she could.

“Should we go after her?” Jen asked.

Adina shook her head. “Let her go. She just needs some space.”